


A demon's heart is a fragile thing

by LetMeTemptYou



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Post-Canon, Sad Ending, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27739276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetMeTemptYou/pseuds/LetMeTemptYou
Summary: An angel’s heart is used to love. To loss, to sacrifice. A demon’s heart is much more fragile. It’s too hard and charred to take the blow, can’t help but crumble.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	A demon's heart is a fragile thing

A demon’s heart isn’t that different from a human’s. It too can love, can skip a beat, can explode and shatter in a million pieces. Crowley could experience it first hand on a freezing winter morning, when he found himself running breathlessly through the streets of London. Flapping on the paper shred clutched in his fist, there were a few terrible words.

_“They found out, my dearest.”_

Tears. They were teardrops smudging the ink in some places. His angel had been crying while writing those last few lines.

_“Don’t think for a single instant that it was your fault. You have to promise me this.”_

He could hear his scolding tone. His angel knew all too well that he couldn’t have blamed anyone else. He never could.

Crowley kept running through the milky mist in his serpent’s eyes, until the veil dissolved and melted in a burning sensation. He had never cried before. The salt burned his eyes and his skin and it dried out in the winter’s cold tearing his cheeks, while a question was tormenting his mind.

_Why am I still here? They took you away… then why in this god forsaken earth am I still here?_

He would find it out soon. He would, while screaming his name against Heaven’s doors, with only a distant and distorted echo answering, until that faded away too as his voice wore off. He would find it out, while scratching with his claws against Hell’s walls, while the rotting smell of dirt mixed with a ferrous taste tied down his tongue.

_Why me? Why couldn’t you leave him?_

He shouted this again and again in his mind, sure that someone was listening. And this time, a silent answer came.

_Because an angel’s heart is used to love. To loss, to sacrifice. A demon’s heart is much more fragile. It’s too hard and charred to take the blow, can’t help but crumble._

They had taken his angel away from him. With no warning, no pity, nor a chance to fight or say goodbye. They had left him all alone under the sun of that vivid morning that shouldn’t have been.

He knocked, he dug, screamed, emptied his lungs and his soul - if he’d had one, and perhaps he did - calling his angel’s name. For the first time, nobody answered.

_He’s really gone. I’m all alone._

In the last six thousand years, he had never been alone. For as different as they were, from the very first moment he had talked to him, on the top of the Eden’s wall, he had known he wouldn’t have been alone.

_“Promise me you’ll keep on living.”_

_So many tricky promises, angel. How do you think I could keep them, eh?_

_“Do it for me. I beg you.”_

_…That’s not fair. Not fair at all._

He fell asleep wrapped in his perfume that still lingered in the desert bookshop, falling awake again after months or maybe years - or maybe just a few seconds. He seemed to be gone for a moment, maybe in the kitchen to make himself a cup of hot chocolate, or behind a shelf reorganizing some title-less books.

He had run out of tears. He’d never known such thing was possible. He felt completely empty, like that room without an owner. His vacant gaze hovered around the things that had been his… theirs, for just those few months that flew by like seconds, since time had always mocked them. It slipped through memories that surfaced like rocks, able to tear his thin tinfoil hull, on words and whispers and gestures and feelings that still burned on his skin, wailing fire like dying embers.

_You were my everything. You have always been._

_“Goodbye, my love."_

He closed his eyes and curled up once again, coil after coil of endless sorrow.

He wasn't going to die. It was his fault, after all… it truly was, so he would accept his punishment.

_I'm sorry, angel. Looks like I can't keep both promises._

In the deepest void behind his shut eyelids, a melody echoed. Sweet, too sweet, but it scattered salt across the bloody scraps in his shredded chest.

_Thought of you as my mountaintop_

_thought of you as my peak_

_thought of you as everything_

_I’ve had, but couldn’t keep_

_I've had, but couldn't keep_

He slowly fell into a heartbreaking sleep, and he’s still sleeping nowadays, searching for his angel. Lost in himself, he’s still searching in vain, ‘cos everyone knows that demons sleep but cannot dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to "Pale Blue Eyes" by The Velvet Underground while thinking about these two and this came out. It's the first piece I'm posting here.. forgive me, I often tend to write sad sad things. Also, sorry if there are any mistakes or bad phrasing, I'm not a native English speaker.


End file.
